Google Announces Layoffs (GOOG)

Google has announced layoffs. Not contractors. Not hourly workers. Googlers.

Not many, thankfully--only 100--and some may be able to find jobs elsewhere in the company. But they're all in HR, which tells you something about how quickly Google has scaled back its own growth expectations.

As we made clear during our last quarterly earnings call in October, Google is still hiring but at a reduced rate. Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring.

Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and reduce the overall size of our recruiting organization by approximately 100 positions.

We know this change will be very difficult for the people concerned, and we hope that many of them will be able to find new roles at Google. They helped build this company, new hire by new hire, and we are enormously grateful for everything they have done.